The Future of Online Independent Businesses

Posted on by alexesguerra

From the Independent Business Org’s reviews and surveys for 2015 it looks like the future is very promising yet as any small independent business lies the challenges.

With the recent numbers of low unemployment paving the way for hiring comes still the lack of funding to sustain operations. Coupled with that is the tough competition online specifically on online book selling where the big online giants eats you up alive by selling lower than what publishers or distributors sell new books for example.

Sometimes, one may wonder how can they do that but the word “BIG” comes with the saying meaning they have the promotional expense funding to utilize so who cares. What’s really funny is with the so called giants comes the big consignors also dropping down prices favoring the atmosphere and if they can sell even new books for $0.01 they will.

I recently had a town hall discussion on our small shop and I raised the question as any independent bookseller would. “If your shopping online e.g. books and your browsing on description and price what do you normally look for and what’s important?”

The brave souls then responded, “We’ve even consider buying acceptable book conditions as long as they are the cheapest price in there” So as gracious as I want to feel, what can I say as for all these years our “Affordable” wasn’t cheap as cheap but “quality” comes with it.

So my take on this as we prepare for Book Expo America through the American Booksellers Association initiatives on May 2016 at McCormick Place in Chicago is it’s time to re-express what book selling and book lovers is about. Quality, experience, joy and great service should still be jointly capitulated on our initiatives and expressions and continue to educate the retail and online consumer what it’s all about.

After all 3 out of 10 online cheapest price sales comes with either the return or negative feedback and guess what? Today even feedback are no longer are deterrent as the culprits invade the cheapest price market on book selling.

The Future of the internet towards human nature

Posted on by alexesguerra

 

The future has began with the digital technology age today.  From video-cams, landlines, instant messaging and reading, the internet has transformed a new way of life.

With online virtual communities and social networking, one does not need to travel thousands of miles to meet and learn about society and culture.

Expressing emotions and ideas are ways to create  a real sense of healing especially when humans go through difficult times in their lives.  Understanding human ordeals is hard especially if we have never experienced the same hardships and situations.

It is no longer assumptions towards realities and analyzing trends but listening to people.  On the other end, the listener has to have the compassion and sentiment to elicit a more positibe attitude.

This is not just about the business aspects of creating niche but also sharing personal experiences over life.  The key is simply accepting what is present and then move on towards a new beginning. This is the real message depicted on the ideology behind why we have constantly promoted the online virtual community.

The Economics of being an emerging online business model

Posted on by alexesguerra

It started back in 1999’s stock market collapse, the rise of the dot.com empire’s and yet we were nobodies.

Came 2001 right after 9/11 then 2004 when two major online business empires almost ruled the world online to include advertising.

Enter 2006, good riddance to more pro-small business models like Google,  Yahoo, Windows, Live.com,  My-space and Facebook including our book notables like Abebooks, Alibris.com, Biblion.co.uk, Choosebooks, Valorebooks, A1 books, Tom Folio.com  and the ABA (American Booksellers Association) when venture capitalists in Silicon Valley where the king of the jungles influenced by the big shot major online players.

Yet, 2007 came start of the great recession after 1931 and a gradual change in the socio-political climate of the world in terms of technology and business.  Fall of 2008 made history having the 1st online high tech 44th President of the United States, a darling of the poor, a new robin hood in technological times and realization that even micro enterprise start-ups have the potential to someday experience the lives the king’s and emperors of silicon valley.

Today, 2009 brings a new generation of emerging online business models ala the dot.com period where emerging start-ups which was snob by venture capitalists before came to rule the world.

As we had continously emphasize our mission of affordability to the limited income earners, our social networks, and the people who have the kind generous hearts of supporting us at http://www.affordable-booksonline.com all we can say is a big hug of thank you’s.  Be it in terms of search engine rankings with Google’s book partner programs, yahoo’s small business team or Amazon’s virtual generosities, to you all we say thank you so much for being there during this phase as we shall forever remember all this good gestures.

As http://www.adleinternational.com and http://www.alex-esguerra.com emerges truly as a new social network for affordability in terms of fighting for low income earners,  be it in terms of advertising or seed capital now is the time to invest when the door opens as it will closed being a privately held company.